By the summer of 1990, Raj Nath Dhar was nearing sixty, a retired man whose days should have been marked by rest, reflection, and the gentle rhythm of a life well lived. Born on 7 August 1931, he had done his share of service, carried responsibilities for decades, and now stood at a stage where peace was both earned and deserved. In the evenings, one imagines him sitting with his family, speaking softly of memories, or planning the quiet routines of a man who had given enough to the world and wanted little more than safety and dignity in return.

But peace was denied to him. On 30 June 1990, his home in Qutub-ud-din Pore, Alikadal, Srinagar, became the stage for terror. Armed men forced their way inside and fired at him, ending his life not with the natural stillness of age but with violence that was swift, cruel, and senseless.

The tragedy deepened in the presence of his ailing seventy-year-old mother. A woman who had already seen the passage of generations, who should never have outlived her own child, now stood witness to his murder. Her cries pierced the air, desperate calls for help that went unanswered. Neighbors who once shared in festivals and grief alike remained silent, fear chaining them to their homes. No one came forward to comfort her, no one to steady her shaking hands as her son bled before her eyes.

His siblings, a sister of forty and a brother of thirty-two, were left bereft, carrying not only the grief of his death but the anguish of knowing their mother’s final years would be haunted by the image of her son falling to bullets.

Raj Nath was taken to SMHS Hospital, Srinagar, where, even then, his life might have been saved had there been care, urgency, or humanity in response. Instead, he died for want of proper medical attention, a victim not only of the gunmen who stormed his home but also of a system that failed him in his final moments.

His assassination was more than the silencing of a retired man. It was the shattering of a family’s fragile peace, the breaking of a mother’s heart at an age when she should have been tended to, not left to watch her son’s life slip away. For Raj Nath Dhar, retirement did not bring rest, only tragedy. For his mother, grief became her last companion.